Troop Cuts

Other news to note WASHINGTON

April 2, 1990

A GROUP of influential defense experts and lawmakers recommended Sunday that Congress move very carefully on U.S. troop cuts in Europe. The study by the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute and endorsed by Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., former Defense Secretary Harold Brown and others said 195,000 U.S. troops should remain in Central Europe through at least 1992. While that supported President Bush's current stand, the study implied that U.S. troop strength in the region could be cut to fewer than 100,000 by the year 2000, far below the 195,000 ''floor'' set by the White House and Pentagon. The study also said Congress should kill Pentagon plans to modernize the Lance nuclear missile. The Germans have turned thumbs down on accepting such a weapon, and at any rate it would be aimed at Poland and other budding democracies in Eastern Europe, the study said. The study urged the Bush administration to press for an East-West agreement on balancing conventional, non-nuclear forces in Europe this year.